The 990 by all reports shows the greatest benefit over the 1070 and 970 with two-channel music listening, with the difference between the two narrowing a fair bit when you look at movies. If you thought you might also do some music listening on this system or if your speakers are a difficult load (something that would make separate amplification more desirable), then the 990 would be my recommendation. For movies only and reasonable speakers, the 1070 would be a mighty cost-effective choice for the front end of a theater system.

Outlaw won't release anything new on the electronics front (1070, 970, 990) until they can integrate HDMI v1.3, and that means we shouldn't expect anything before mid-year at the earliest (I kinda suspect closer to year-end, but that's just my SWAG). They probably won't have a presence at CES, although it sounds like we may see a new product announcement later this month (apparently in a new product category for Outlaw, so presumably not a receiver, processor, or amp).